In up to my knees.

Okay, so..you know those awkward lollipops with the big sugar crystals and the wooden knob-handles? Those are tea-stirrers. I just sort of eat them. I had no idea really but now that I know it makes PERFECT SENSE!

Today is my birthday. Welcome to the weirdness that is me, always. Am dressed up! With eyelashes and everything because we're going out to shop and eat and do whatever I want because I. am. awesome and my mind is forever somewhere between twelve and seventeen. Really the numbers just keep ticking up and I want to grab the lowest one with both arms and pull back down hard with all of my weight until the one left showing matches how I feel.

On the upside? They are finished the fountain. All the pounding and hammering was to fix the steps/driveway/new section but the pond/fountain was put in and is WORKING! I can't hear it at all unless I am standing in it.

But the very best part?

Caleb did not get the koi fish to stock the pond. He got us turtles. Turtles and a bullfrog (which I'm told will be eaten by the turtles so he should now hop away, for his little green life)!

Because as I told you, I am still twelve and twelve-year-olds don't drink tea (or stay out of ponds full of turtles, for that matter).

Bane.

They started at 7:50 this morning, and I was at Caleb's door at 7:56 in my pajamas. He opens it, unsmiling but dressed and ready for his day and I barge right in, complaining that we have noise bylaws and sleeping boys and neighbors with infants and why the fuck can't they take a week off from jackhammering the whole fucking property and then I see the purse on the counter.

Oh, you're busy.

Bridget, it's just-

Then she walks out into the living room, trying to latch her earring. Oh God. Not her.

Bridget. Still unhappy with the entire universe, are you?

Long time no see, Sophie. Too bad we don't have more time to talk but you have to leave.

Caleb and I-

Yeah, safe trip home. Get out.

You don't get to tell me what to do in his house.

Sure I do. I look at Caleb, waiting for him to pick a side. He doesn't make me wait long.

I'll have Mike take you to the airport, Sophie.

But I thought we were going to-

I forgot I have an engagement this morning. Sorry.

She scowls at me and I shoot her my winningest smile. Caleb is trying not to laugh at me at this point. I have bedhead, I know. Great.

I see. Still stringing everyone along. Quite the little piece of work you are, as always.

Bye, Sophie. My smile drops as I turn and leave. A little warning would have been nice. As I grab the railing to go down the wet stairs I hear their voices rise. A fight. Oh darn.

***

Caleb walks into the kitchen an hour later, just as I slide the first of the birthday cupcakes into the stove to bake.

Bridget, that wasn't nice.

Was it nice of you to bring her here?

She was in town for a couple days. I didn't think I had to clear it with you.

You picked my side.

Of course I did.

I'm surprised by that.

Don't be. It's the burning building question. Who would I save? Well, she may be easier, but you are more fun.

Why is that?

I think the sight of you, with your messy curls, in your Hello Kitty pajamas ready to claw the makeup right off of her face was so adorable what else could I do?

Maybe you could entertain her downtown?

At Batman's hotel? Maybe we can fill each other's ice buckets. Your post yesterday was quite genius. Throw Batman to the wolves and then they won't notice Lochlan has finally regained his Alpha status.

That's not what I did.

Then you're deluding yourself. And for the record? I slept on the couch in the living room last night. So she wasn't very happy this morning to begin with.

I actually don't want the gory details.

Well, I'm going to give them to you anyway. I'm too old for one-night stands.

Even with Sophie?

Sophie is a social climber and a parasite and unlike you she is never silly and definitely never cute. So in case you wondered where my loyalties were, they are with you, always. The only reason I didn't let you know was because it was late and I know Henry isn't feeling well. Since there won't be a next time, I don't actually have to promise to do it differently, do I?

No, you don't.

How are the cupcakes coming? They smell delicious. I could have gone to the bakery though. You only have one birthday a year, Bridget.

My birthday isn't until tomorrow. These are just because it's Friday and...I like pre-weekends.

Yeah, me too. He stands there looking like an idiot, smiling huge. It's contagious. I cock my head and calculate.

Come back in an hour or so and you can taste-test them.

I will do that.

Today also marks the very first time I offered to feed Caleb without wondering briefly how to poison it so as to kill him without detection. It's a whole fucking day of firsts! Amazing!

Counterintelligence.

This week Lochlan did what he always does when something isn't quite going right.

He put on his resigned face, and he hauled his logic out, dusting off the top and oiling all of the moving parts. He pulled me in close, pressing a kiss hard against my forehead and told me grimly that everything will be okay, just keep going forward and we'll cross the bridges when we get to them. I nod in reply. We're resilient and silly and insolent and committed. We're filthy and hungry and we dream of adventure.

So why do we regret it when it finally shows itself?

***
Batman sends me a text message mid-morning, just as I am beginning a full-on house cleaning. I'm still fighting the parade of cherry blossom stems tracking indoors. I'm losing. They're everywhere. And on the almost-white carpets and white tile it's sort of a seasonal mess. My work is cut out for me. Fuck me, they're even in our beds.

Room service lunch today if you're game. I'll buy. And order without even looking.

I don't respond right away and ten minutes later another message chimes in.

Or we could just spend the afternoon in bed in the hotel. That's fine too.

I freeze. It's a blatant, crass message that Batman wouldn't write. I'm trying to figure out how to respond when three more messages crash into the first two.

Just ignore that. My brain is not connected to my fingers.

Don't tell them, it was a joke.

I'm very sorry. I think I must have spring fever.

The last one made me laugh. Don't make things weird again, Batman. I say it under my breath. It's sort of too late for normal, however. Batman was the original Indecent Proposal of my adulthood. I think sometimes when things don't go right in his life he becomes wistful for that, but at no point do I think he means any harm so there is no harm in writing it down.

Repeating itself.

I was coming up the sidewalk with the dog, out for a quick walk before beginning to pull dinner together, when I saw her. Ruth, long hair glinting gold in the sun, hoodie tied in a knot around her thin frame, pink t-shirt and jeans, converse. In a pack with around ten other kids. Loose on a sunny afternoon with vague instructions to stay out of the woods and be home by four-forty at the latest.

She made a move to run out from between two parked cars, heading up the hill in a game of Cops & Robbers when the boy in front of her threw his arm up to block her from going any further, as an SUV drove slowly down the street.

She laughed and he smiled at her. He's a full head taller than she is, red t-shirt and jeans and I don't know his name but she will tell me later. Once the street was clear he dropped his arm and took off with her running hard to keep or catch up.

Kind of reminds me of someone.

Update: His name is Tyler and he is thirteen and a half, and he's man enough to sit out on the porch with Lochlan, PJ, Christian and Andrew while they discuss why Ruthie isn't allowed in the woods. He has pointed out several times that he was with her and he wouldn't let anything happen to her anyway but that he is very, very sorry he talked her into it. I daresay there's a hint of a smile playing on Lochlan's face, while Ruth has already run upstairs crying because she is trouble, probably having thrown herself facedown on her bed.

I'm sure this will replay itself many times over in varying degrees of severity over the next few years and I can say I hope it gets easier but I know it won't.

I am trying to break my mind, and other future Wilco songs.

(Sorry to be so perpetually unavailable, it's been a busy week so far.)

-Matt and Sam? Done, for the time being. Sam is not being as resilient as he once told me to be, and I'm having a hard time comforting him without wanting to THROW THAT IN HIS FACE.

-Duncan opted to not file his taxes, due yesterday. I am waiting for an unmarked black CRA van to squeal down the driveway, throw him in the back and take him away. While I wait I'm introducing him to Turbo Tax. Because he was the only one who said he would "take care of it" once I finished when I offered to mail/file/phone. I'm glad I followed up. He is a little bit too laissez-faire these days about important things and all jacked completely uptight about unimportant things. I think his midlife crisis is finally kicking in.

-Coach sent me a 25% discount offer in honor of my upcoming birthday. My brand-spanking shiny new family doctor scheduled me for a fucking mammogram as her gift to me. Obviously the purse-shopping excites me far more. Also I can't seem to decide on a birthday dinner restaurant. Or who to take with me, seeing as how Ben has resumed his resistance all things redhaired and circusy.

(They have four days remaining to sort it out before I take Dalton and we'll just do tequila body shots off of each other and toast to madness and the art of finding midnight in the bottom of a sunlight sunlit (Ben just messaged me and told me sunlight looked wrong. BLAH.) horizon or something equally nonsensical. Dalton has turned out to be the smarter brother in the family, clearly. I offered him Saturday and he smiled and said I'm game. Whatever you want, princess.)

-This morning work began on the driveway too, since they have the heavy equipment here anyway to put in the never-ending, ostentatious yacht club/former simple removable dock. You know, because Mr. Honest (heretofore known as Satan) failed to inform me he was having part of the driveway extended so that it actually splits and turns right so that he can park up beside the boathouse, on the hill, instead of having to come all the way down to the house, past the garage with all the vehicles here already. I'm sure he is spending whatever this costs to stick it to PJ, who regularly sticks it to Caleb by parking directly behind the Porsche so Caleb can't get out. It's a little ridiculous but it makes me laugh.

Also, Caleb is putting in a fountain/pond out front. For koi. I'll be able to hear it from my bedroom window, which overlooks the front of the house and now I'll have to pee all the damn time just from listening to the sound of running water. Yay! In the meantime I get the sound of bulldozers and men yelling. Yay! Nothing new there.

-I bought Insurgent this morning (because the nice people at the tiny independent bookstore in town held a copy for me and oh my God I love them to bits) and have cleared seventy pages so far. This is a record for me, I'm admittedly a hideously slow reader. It's so good I want to eat the physical book.

-I painted my nails in Fearless Fog. Corey called it Cadaver Corpse because it's a weird mauvy-rigor-grey but he's a sick fuck anyway. I like the color but I love the name. I want to spend the rest of my life in a fearless fog and then things that shouldn't hurt won't and things that don't matter will.

Oh, I think I just figured out Duncan.

Neat.

Metallicorigami

(A rather awkward and half-assed portmanteau for a title, isn't it? Forgive me, I'm tired today. I'll pick up where I should have tomorrow.)

This morning Ruth remarked that her most recent purchase of origami paper had some metallic sheets in it. Only when she spoke I had turned the water on and my ears heard Metallica sheets. Almost immediately the jokes began to fly about hardcore paper and shred-folding.

Ben grabbed a piece of tinfoil and began to sing at the top of his lungs while he constructed a paper airplane:

Take a look to the sky just before you die
It is the last time you will
Blackened roar massive roar fills the crumbling sky
Shattered goal fills his soul with a ruthless cry
Stranger now, are his eyes, to this mystery
He hears the silence so loud
Crack of dawn, all is gone except the will to be
Now they will see what will be, blinded eyes to see

I sank to the floor on the other side of the island in laughter, for when he launched it it crashed into the stereo, ruined. He threw up both arms and yelled It's been an amazing night tonight, thanks for coming out-ah! Hope to see you again real soon-ah yeahhhh! in his very best James Hetfield.

Breaking points.

Standing above the crowd,
He had a voice so strong
and loud and I swallowed his facade
cause I'm so eager to identify with
Someone above the ground,
Someone who seemed to feel the same,
Someone prepared to lead the way, with
Someone who would die for me.

Will you? Will you now?
Would you die for me?
Don't you fucking lie.
Don't you step out of line.
Don't you fucking lie.

You've claimed all this time that you would die for me.
Why then are you so surprised to hear your own eulogy?

Lochlan is awake late, picking out the notes to Bach's Prelude Suite No. 1 on his guitar as I write out the important spring dates on the calendar. I'm attempting not to be impressed but I fail wildly.

That's beautiful!

You like that? He smiles. I figured I should learn some familiar tunes at the very least.

Yes. It was great. I stop beside the stereo, pressing the power button, pressing Lochlan's buttons. Tool swells through the room, earsplittingly loud from where he turned it off earlier as he marched into the room yelling about honesty and wolves in sheeps' clothing and how I don't listen.

I WAS listening.

(To the music, which I always face head-on. Like a car wreck about to happen.)

I turn around and he is right there in my face, shouting again. I can't hear him because my teeth are chattering from the drums, my brain is reverberating through my skull, rationale replaced with firecracker explosions of instruments and he's saying arrogant things about promises and nostalgia. He's saying entitled things about life before this kind of stereo equipment when I could hardly hear the words and I would have to wait patiently for a moment when I would catch him off guard so I could listen to him sing the words and then I would know them too.

He finally has enough and turns off the stereo. As violent as the noise was, the silence is worse, falling like a shroud over the moment, choking it off. He starts talking again but I miss it. I'm considering how I feel about the music changing again, I'm not paying attention, finishing the lyrics silently to myself.

Abruptly Lochlan grabs my whole head and presses my forehead against his. BRIDGET. You forgave me. What in the hell is this?

Inability to function as logically as you can.

What do you mean?

Exactly. I don't know.

Who are you punishing by spending so much time with Caleb? Me? Ben? You?

Everyone.

It's working, isn't it? Where is Ben?

Downstairs.

When's the last time he came up for air?

Tuesday, I lie. I don't remember. He isn't speaking to me past repeating his magical rules so it's not important right now.

It's been a long week, Bridget. Can we call a truce? Can we just go back to the way things were?

Talk to Ben.

What in the hell is he doing exactly? Trading me for the devil? That's not going to help his cause, that will just make things worse.

He doesn't see it that way, Lochlan. He thinks you don't care about him.

Of course I care! I can't believe I'm pleading my case. Fuck this. We've been all fucked up since I pulled you out of the water in November and it's time I straightened us out. He pushes past me, headed for the stairs.

Where are you going?

To talk to your husband.

Batman and the space where gravity meets levity.

Someday you might find your hero
Some say you might lose your mind
I'm keeping my head down now for the summer
I'm out of my mind but pour me another
I'm going to take that tiger outside for a ride

New-Jake pulls a corner of his toast away with his teeth and chews noisily. Someone's getting a cold. Probably because most of the boys have been wearing shorts for a month when the weather still calls for jeans. I'm not sure how much of a mother I should be to this one because sometimes I am a little in awe of how much he observes in the run of a day, honestly.

He holds out a piece to me.

I don't like toast, Jake. But thank you.

Did you eat today?

Banana.

At what, six this morning?

Yes.

Then I'll make you something.

Lunch is right around the corner, Jake. Don't worry so much.

So let me get this straight. Ben's cool that you are sometimes with Caleb?

No.

But he doesn't freak out.

He has his own issues, Jake.

And all of you speak Gaelic to shut him out?

No. Yes. Well, not at first.

Ben is the outsider, then.

No, he's the longshot. There's a difference.

I don't understand this house.

Me neither. Now finish your toast. You shouldn't wait so long to eat.

I stick my tongue out at New-Jake as I get up to tidy the kitchen. Batman walks in unannounced. He greets both of us and sits down at the island beside Jake to read the paper. Jake stares at him until Batman looks up and says What? and then, caught, Jake holds out the half-eaten toast. Breakfast? I laugh behind my hands and Batman regards me coolly.

What are you up to, Bridget?

Cleaning up before we leave.

I mean with Satan.

Keeping the peace. I stand my ground. It's a tile, twelve by twenty-four. Sicilian baroque.

He is amused. He looks at Jake and then stands and comes over to me, right up close until he is breathing my air and he softens finally. I worry about you.

It's a club now, is it? I'm going to lose it. My eyes are watering madly and my knees shake.

It's always been a club. Bridget, look around you. Don't you see how everyone tightens up when Caleb bends your ear? We all want what's best for you.

Because I'm the child.

Because you've been through enough.

I don't play the sympathy card.

I know. I admire you for that.

You shouldn't. My chin is quavering and he's such a gentleman, he changes the subject.

Where to for lunch today, Bridget? You decide.

Red Lobster or Chipotle. (Jake begins to laugh and I ignore him.)

Batman sighs. Where are they?

Um...Richmond, I think?

Are you sure you don't want to go downtown?

I don't think this city is big enough for you and Caleb and he's already heading there, to the hotel for lunch.

Amusement lights up his face. I think sometimes you're right, Bridget. It might not be big enough. We're too old for these games but at the same time I made a promise and I intend to keep it. He checks his watch and I am put in my place, neatly and with finesse.

I don't think Cole ever intended me to be a burden to you, ______. I say his name softly and he stops, surprised.

Bridget, who said you were a burden?

You just did. Saying you're too old for this.

Hell, Bridget, this keeps me young and as a bonus I get to see your beautiful face whenever I want. Caleb isn't a threat to me. I am mindful of your history with him as well as his role as a threat to you.

Tell me about it. The history part, I mean. Tell me what you know.

I don't think I have to, Bridget. I heard there are tapes if your memory is lacking.

Was that a bad joke?

The very worst. He winks at me and changes the subject once more. Chipotle. Really?

If we can find it. If not, I know where the Chuck-E-Cheese is in Langley.

You age me. Do you know that?

Where do you want to eat? Room service in your stuffy hotel?

What's wrong with room service?

It's boring.

Now you're calling me boring? But I'm the Batman!

Oh my God. You did not just say that.

I did. Now come on. Alfred's waiting.

Alfred...what?

I'm kidding. Sadly. I drove my own car here. But if you really want to drive to McWhatever, I'll call you Alfred and then we'll have the full Dark Knight experience.

Really?

No, Bridget, and after today I'm picking the restaurants.

You mean it's room service from here on out.

I don't even need a menu. I have it memorized. He struts out the door like a peacock. I grab my bag and follow. Jake throws the toast at me as I pass and I duck.

(Update: I question the existence of the Chipotle, which we never did find. We wound up at the hotel. Had room service. He ordered from memory. It was good. The end.)

Somewhere between.

I sat curled in the center of his large corduroy couch underneath a triptych of myself, in which Cole painted me swirling a blood-red maple leaf in a puddle of water, my hair blowing up mischievously in the wind. But it isn't a happy picture, it's so very cold and bleak and hopeless. I can't remember what he called it and I don't want to ask. Something like Waiting for November, I think.

Calling December, Caleb returns to the room with hot chocolate and cookies. I pick one up and put it back. Cranberry cookies. Store bought. Read my mind now, Diabhal.

But he fails and hits the button to resume the movie. We are, as Henry put it so eloquently yesterday, hanging out. Spending time in all of its brutal honesty which isn't what I would have chosen, for I am completely out of my element at this point and Lochlan has picked enough fights to make a bouquet, maybe since there's one in the front hall he didn't sent to me. Caleb did, because he promised he would when he was drunk as a skunk the other night. Possibly less drunk than I suspect, since he remembered more than I did.

The card read not mean. It made me smile.

This movie does not, however but I am riveted nonetheless. The Ledge. Patrick Wilson, Liv Tyler, Charlie Hunnam (who will forever be Nicholas Nickleby anyway) and I don't want to watch it but I can't not watch it because of the chemistry and Patrick as a bad guy and Liv as a power-mouse, as always. Caleb points out the compelling nature of her mannerisms in the movie. I am struck by how embedded his dominating tendencies are. It's like he is two different people, but then again, aren't we all?

I look up again at the girl with the maple leaves and wonder if she has this problem too. Probably not, she is confined to three panels and seventeen colors and she has no idea she'll be watching some sort of reverse-biography late in the evening in the pouring rain in the place she shouldn't be but sometimes the places you escape to to avoid the endless condescension of those who think they get it right, every last time, are the places where you can exhale for a moment.

This movie is a reminder that sometimes no one gets it right.

It goes on the pile with Into the Wild and Blue Valentine, I guess. Sad movies for ruthless realists. Misery, conjured on purpose. Unhealthy pastimes for people who definitely know better and still choose to get it wrong because it's easier.

Nevermind me. I'm a little down today. I know how the movie ends.

"Your princess is quite a winning creature. A trifle simple, perhaps. Her appeal is undeniable."

I knocked softly and was rewarded with an opened door. Caleb is up! Surprise of all surprises he is showered and dressed and nursing a teal-green-black mug of strong coffee in the kitchen. His blackberry is buzzing nonstop, the newspaper is deconstructed and all over the counter top and the remnants of a hard-boiled egg and toast remain on a plate near the sink. I'm suitably impressed. I had considered bringing the cymbals over, figuring I would have to make some serious noise to get him up.

He kisses my cheek in greeting. I see the fatigue then, in and around his eyes. He didn't bother shaving and is in jeans and a long-sleeved white waffle knit tee. A home-day at least. Good. I think he needs a break today. I tell him I will bring him with me to run errands and that he can rest assured he didn't recite most of the Princess Bride in his drunkenness last evening (it's a thing, every. single. one. of the boys has done this at one time or another) and he holds up his hand and tells me he drank water on my advice and doesn't feel that badly today and besides, he read word for word what he said in my journal and is there anything he can do or offer in exchange for not writing publically anymore?

Of course not. I look cross at him, because cross is what that comment deserves. But then I soften. How are you really feeling?

Like a forty-nine-year-old frat boy.

Excellent. Get your jacket. We're going grocery shopping.

Is Loch coming? I don't think I could take that giant food warehouse and the redhead at the same time right now.

No, he has work to do.

Thank Christ.

Funny, he said the same thing.